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IGF 2018 Call for Workshop Proposals

All stakeholders were invited to submit proposals to hold workshops at the 13th Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF).

A Thematic Approach to the IGF Programme

Based on inputs from the IGF 2017 stocktaking process as well as the first 2018 IGF Open Consultations, and in line with outcomes of the earlier CSTD Working Group on IGF Improvements and the IGF Retreat organized by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), this year, many MAG members expressed their preference for having more concrete, focused and cohesive discussions during the IGF annual meeting, trying to avoid sessions that duplicate content and concepts, and reducing the number of parallel sessions. It was decided that taking a more thematic approach to the programme would be most likely to deliver the requested results.

A bottom-up, community-wideCall for Issues was held between 26 March and 13 April, during which stakeholders were asked to indicate their areas of interest (‘themes’) and suggest the issues (‘subthemes’) to feature in this year’s programme, including new or emerging ones. The themes and proposed subthemes for the meeting have therefore been preliminarily determined through the more than 300 submissions received through this process.

In addition, proposers are invited to select from more than50subthemes classified under the themes. These cover a broad range of Internet governance interests and include topics as varied as Access & Connectivity, Cyberdiplomacy, Encryption, Internet & the Environment, Local Content, and Virtual Reality, among many others.

Proposers may also write in a subtheme of their choosing.

Workshop Evaluations

The four major criteria in the evaluation process will centre around Relevance, Content, Diversity, and Format of each proposal. Proposers are strongly advised to pay particular attention to ensuring gender, regional and stakeholder diversity within their organizing teams, as well as among their listed speakers, as these will be reviewed against diversity criteria, which is a key measure. Proposers are further advised that they should have a minimum of three speakers listed and to limit their number of speakers to five wherever possible, in particular when selecting a panel format, so as to ensure space in their session for participant engagement. While this is not a disqualifying criteria, excessive numbers of speakers will result in lower support for the proposal. Please note that individual speakers will be limited to three sessions after the selection process.

All proposers should consult the detailed documents below before making a submission.

Resource documents include an abbreviated manual for proposers, a step-by-step overview of the screening and evaluation process by the Secretariat and MAG, as well as explanations on workshop formats and how they may impact evaluation criteria.